


The Death of a Trader and Other Things We Won't Cry About

by pyrexprodigy



Series: Rivals AU aka Vriska is bad at feelings [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blind Terezi, F/F, Humanstuck, Latina Terezi, One-Armed Vriska, Scourge Sisters, technically a coffee shop AU I guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-01
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-20 19:41:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3662556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrexprodigy/pseuds/pyrexprodigy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“you were my rival in first grade and damn you’ve gotten really hot since then au” from tumblr</p>
<p>Vriska can’t believe that the one and only Terezi Pyrope is standing in front of her at this crappy little coffee shop on the corner of bumfuck nowhere street. It’s even harder to believe that string bean from first grade became this knockout with a wit as sharp as her elbows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Death of a Trader and Other Things We Won't Cry About

**Author's Note:**

> Pffffft. I don't even know. This is my first time writing for this pairing and it's kind of just a warm-up fic, so it ain't perfect or anything.

“Terezi? Are you Terezi Pyrope?”

Vriska wouldn’t normally make conversation with a customer (unless it was one of the regulars. Like Karkat. God, he was fun to mess with) but this was a special case. The latina girl in front of her was so goddamn familiar that she almost felt stupid that she didn’t realize who it was until she read the signature. Shit, it was more “deciphering” than anything else. What kind of signature was that? The girl might as well have stuck the pen in her nose and scribbled across the counter.

“The one and only. Who’s asking?” she asks with a grin of clean, eerie teeth. Vriska doesn’t know why that unnerves her. Maybe it’s the tone, not quite chilly but not buddy-buddy. It’s like she knows something and she’s holding it over her and the bitch will never ever confess, not in a million goddamn years-

Ahem. Terezi’s creepy. That’s all.

“Vriska. Vriska Serket. We used to go to school together,” Vriska replies. Terezi cocks her head and her eyes are unreadable from behind her stupid tinted glasses but Vriska imagines she’s squinting as she tries to remember. It’s almost insulting.

“Right! Spider bitch.”

Vriska huffs and slams the cardboard cup onto the counter, sloshing a significant amount over her hand. Terezi doesn’t seem to notice.

“It’s nice to be remembered,” Vriska mutters. Despite this, Terezi’s smile doesn’t waver.

“You’re the one who put spiders in the teacher’s desk. It’s a memorable thing,” Terezi brushed off her negativity like she’s some sort of shitty raincloud or something. It just serves to make her more annoyed. “If you didn’t want to be remembered for it, you shouldn’t have done it.”

Vriska protests, “I was six!” before clamping her mouth shut and glaring at Terezi. She either doesn’t notice or doesn’t give a shit and honestly the chances of one or the other are pretty damn neck in neck. She’s barely been talking to this girl for three minutes and already she feels that same intense annoyance she felt back when they were children.

“Well, it was nice to see you, Serket,” Terezi says. She tosses money on the counter and stuffs a handful of bills into the tip jar. Vriska might be imagining it, but it’s possible she winks behind her red glasses.

As the girl saunters out, Vriska decides she hates those glasses, even if the face behind them has gotten pretty goddamn attractive.

* * *

 

The second time Terezi comes in, Vriska aren’t the one manning the counter. She grins at her from where she’s ordering, keeps eye-contact (at least, that’s what Vriska thinks is going on; she can’t tell with those fucking glasses in the way) as she shoves another unknown sum of money into the tip jar. Last time it was well over thirty dollars.

Bitch.

Vriska makes sure to be at the register that next Thursday, the day Terezi seems to be consistently coming on. It’s a pity she can’t find her voice when she finally gets face to face with the girl but hell, it’s not like she had thought about what to say anyway.

“So how’ve you been?” Terezi asks, leaning on the counter with her red cane. Vriska hadn’t paid the cane much thought. Maybe Terezi had some sort of stress injury. What the fuck ever, right?

“Allow me to sum up eleven years in one sentence,” Vriska replies, tapping blue fingertips on the counter near Terezi’s arm. She’s taller than the other girl, with longer hair and actual makeup. Seriously, does Terezi even try to comb her damn hair? It’s a rat’s nest. You could probably pull a spider’s egg sac out of that. “School is shit, work is shit, and everything is boring. Seriously, at least you were fun to have as a rival.”

Terezi snorts. “Jesus, I remember that,” she says. “All that shit with territory wars and the clubs.”

“I’m surprised the teacher didn’t lock us in the shed,” Vriska agrees. She glances to Sollux, her fellow barista for the day. He only works about two days a week and speaks like a complete idiot, but she can forgive that since he doesn’t talk to her all that much. Though Vriska doesn’t doubt he’s going as slowly as humanly possible just to drive her crazy at the moment. No, she’d never put something like that past a Captor.

“With all the sharp things? What a great idea.” There’s the sound of whipped cream as Sollux piles a mountain on top of Terezi’s cappuccino. How is this girl not dead yet?

“Well, it would have put an end to things faster,” Vriska states. She prints the receipt and slides it to Terezi. The smaller girl slides a pen from her pocket and scribbles her ridiculous fucking signature onto the paper after running a careful finger along it, stopping at the very end.

“Your signature is shit,” comments Vriska.

Terezi just gives her that same shit-eating grin. “Well, I am a little bit fucking blind, Serket. You’ll have to forgive my inability to scrawl with the perfection of one such as yourself.”

Vriska waves the comment away, though her stomach sinks into her knees. Shit, what a stupid thing to say. Luckily, Terezi doesn’t seem offended as she raises the pen and taps her fingers across the counter to Vriska’s arm. It’s the real one, fortunately. Vriska doesn’t need anymore shitty conversations right now. She watches as Terezi draws her pen tip to the skin on the back of her hand. She thinks she’s going for a flower, but it’s messy and she can’t really tell.

“There. Blessed by the skilled hand of the blind girl. Now stop bitching,” Terezi says, pushing Vriska’s hand back to her and clicking her pen. She returns it to her pocket as Sollux slides the coffee across the counter, offering and eyebrow wriggle that makes Vriska a bit sick inside.

“Fuck off,” she snaps under her breath as she shoves him away. “There’s your coffee. Get out of my damn store, Pyrope.”

“See you around!” Terezi says in that tone of eternal joy and need for torment. Okay, that second part is probably Vriska’s imagination. When Terezi is out the door, Vriska wonders exactly what the hell is wrong with that girl as she stares down at the messy flower on the back of her hand, made worse by the bumps of bone beneath her skin.

“Hey, Vriska. Did she even pay?”

Vriska turns to Sollux with a glare he’s rarely seen before on her face. “Shit.”

* * *

 

Before Terezi has a chance to open the door to the shop, Vriska rushes out from behind the counter and locks the door. She may or may not have tripped over a display of muffins on the way, causing Sollux to snort into his hand to keep from laughing louder. Luckily no one else is in the shop at the moment so there are no customers to deal with, aside from the one potential girl outside this very door. With a quick movement, Vriska slams the key into the lock of the door and it clicks as she locks it.

It’s unnerving how Terezi pauses almost instantly, fingers barely clasping the handle on the other side. She grins like she knows Vriska’s there, though she can’t possibly know that. Instead of knocking like a reasonable human being, Terezi removes her glasses, revealing scarred, closed eyes. She presses her face against the glass, pushing her nose back so Vriska can see into her nostrils. Vriska can feel her lip curling in annoyance as Terezi licks the glass outside.

“I’m not cleaning that,” Sollux informs her. She ignores him in favor of violently unlocking and opening the door.

“Don’t be fucking gross, Terezi,” she says. “Who knows who else has touched this door? Ugh, it makes me sick just thinking about it.”

Terezi ignores her much in the same way Vriska has just completely ignored her fellow barista. “Is this some new game?” she asks. “Bully the blind girl?”

Vriska scoffs in response. “Not much of a new game.”

Terezi smacks her in the ankle with her cane and makes her way to the counter, where Sollux is leaning across the surface smirking at Vriska. Unwittingly, she feels her face flush like some middle school girl around her gross crush.

“So, what will the lady have today?” Sollux asks in a tone she’s never heard him use with anyone. It’s almost polite, but it’s slightly too playful to be properly polite. She glares at him as she walks back around the counter.

“Oh, I’m sure Vriska knows what I like at this point,” Terezi replies.

“Maybe you could stop being boring and order something new,” Vriska tells her, leaning with her back against the wall and her arms crossed, tap-tap-tapping her long fingernails on her arm.

Terezi seems to consider this for a moment. “Why not?” she says. “Give me a strawberry smoothie. I’m in the mood for something pink.”

Vriska doesn’t even bother asking at this point as she sets herself to the task of making Terezi’s order.

“So,” the other girl begins, “why’d you lock the door?”

“I was planning on keeping you locked out until you promised to pay for your last order.”

She shrugs. “That’s fair. You could’ve just taken it out of the tips I keep giving you.”

“Yes, because Vriska Serket taking money looks great to anyone.”

There’s a snicker and Vriska glances up at Terezi. Sollux is guiding her to the line where she needs to sign. “Still stealing, huh?”

“Not from tip jars,” Vriska replies in a mutter, pressing start on the blender. The next few seconds are filled with the whirring of mechanical blades and the dying screams of strawberries. Okay, not really, but at least the thought of it makes this job more interesting.

“Same Vriska as always,” Terezi’s directing her speech at Sollux now, her voice loud to reach over the noise of the blender. “She could never keep her hands off my stuff when she was younger. Still have my ladybug eraser, Vriska?”

Vriska shrugs, adding more milk to the smoothie. “Probably in a box somewhere,” she admits.

Terezi laughs. “Also still a packrat. What has actually changed since we were in the same class?”

“Well, I’m getting paid to put up with you. Whipped cream?”

Terezi shakes her head. “Not in the mood for that much white.”

Again with the damn colors. This girl gets weirder the more she talks.

“Other than that, nothing has changed,” Vriska confirms, filling a plastic cup with pink strawberry smoothie. She slices a strawberry into strips and slides the middle slice onto the top for decoration, realizing too late how similar to a heart it looks. With an internal sigh, she slides it to Sollux, who gives it to Terezi.

“Well, I assume you got hot, but I have no idea.” Terezi taps on her glasses knowingly and Sollux snorts, turning away to heave with laughter. Vriska makes sure to step on his foot as she leans in to hand Terezi her change, which her idiot co-worker has neglected to give her.

“And you definitely got hot,” Vriska decides. Oh, fuck.

Sollux comes back and uses the foot she stepped on to kick her in the ankle as Terezi laughs. “Thanks. Hey, I don’t hear anyone else in here. Got a moment?”

“Uh, sure,” Vriska tells her. She nervously brushes back her messy bangs, realizing she should probably get around to re dyeing her blue streaks. Or maybe that looks too trashy. Might be time for a change, honestly.

“Come sit outside with me for a while. That okay with you, Appleberry?” she asks Sollux. He seems thrown off by the nickname but nods before realizing she can’t actually see him doing that.

“Sure. Not like anyone’s going to show up in the next ten minutes.” He waves the two of them away. This is all it takes for Vriska to decide, walking back around to the other side of the counter and propping the door open for Terezi. WIth a grin the girl says, “What a gentleman,” before walking out ahead of her, drink and cane in hand.

Vriska won’t admit to helping her find a place to sit, but that’s what happens. She pulls out one of the chairs in front of the shop, gently showing Terezi where to go. She sits down, legs uncrossed and drink set on the table. Vriska follows suit, leaning back and crossing her arms. Despite being downtown, the shop is settled on a fairly disused street. It was a house at one point, until the owner bought it and renovated it. They’re actually sitting on what used to be a porch, in the shade of an umbrella.

“Nice smoothie,” Terezi tells her after slurping down a significant amount of the drink. How she doesn’t get brain freeze after that, Vriska has no idea.

“Thanks. It’s kind of my job.”

Terezi smirks, face directed to the road. There aren’t any cars, but the sounds of traffic a few streets over are obvious, even to someone who doesn’t rely on their hearing.

“It’s kind of cool to run into you. You were always one of those people I wanted to see again someday,” Terezi pauses for a second before correcting herself. “Well, ‘see’ being a relative term, I guess. Don’t you have people like that?”

Vriska shrugs. “Not really.”

Terezi leans over the punch her in the arm. She barely even misses. “Okay, Miss Anthrope. I get your point. But you can’t be serious. You must have seen a customer or talked to a wrong number caller once that you kind of want to see or talk to again.” She leans back in her seat, sticking the straw of her drink back between her teeth. “I dunno, maybe I’m weird in that way.”

“You’re weird in a lot more ways than just that,” Vriska replies with a smirk of her own. “No, I guess I get that. There was this girl who showed up once with her girlfriend. She was just… Very friendly. I don’t know. I don’t really get it.”

“Good to know you have some humanity in you yet,” the other girl says. “And it’s good to see you.”

“Yeah,” Vriska says, staring out at the empty street. “It’s been nice to see you, too.”

 


End file.
